Lucas: Ethics Commission and hypocrisy

By Peter Lucas

Updated:
09/03/2013 07:56:54 AM EDT

Politicians who are upset over the decision of the State Ethics Commission to force state Sen. Dan Wolf out of the governor's race have only themselves to blame.
It is they who created the monstrosity of an Ethics Commission in the first place. Now it has come back to bite them. Unfortunately it has also impacted the voters of Massachusetts.
In case you've been out to lunch, the story is how the Ethics Commission, created by the Legislature in 1978 to keep tabs on legislators involved in conflicts of interest, has grown so powerful that it can now decide just who can run for governor.
It is a textbook example of how an unsupervised state agency, enmeshed in bureaucratic rules and regulations - along with a heavy dose of self-righteousness - can interfere with the democratic process and the peoples' right to vote for a candidate. And all done behind closed doors as well.
And the main reason why the Ethics Commission has been allowed to run amok is that members of the Legislature are intimated by the agency that oversees their political lives. It is remindful of the East German Stasi of old.
Legislators over the years have not dared to rein in the agency, suspecting that if they did so they would become targets, especially if they accepted a couple of free tickets to a New England Patriots football game, for instance.
State Sen. Dan Wolf, a two-term state senate liberal Democrat from Harwich, did not accept any free tickets. He just tried to run for governor. But he was forced to suspend his campaign last week after the Ethics Commission ruled that Wolf ran afoul of the state's conflict of interest law.

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Wolf, a self-made businessman and founder of the regional airliner Cape Air 25 years ago, which now employs some 1,000 people, is actually the type of individual that you need in government - a job-creating entrepreneur.
However, the commission ruled that Wolf, who owns 23 percent of Cape Air, was in violation of the law because Cape Air has contracts with MassPort for landing fees at Logan Airport, even though the contract agreements are not subject to negotiation, and the landing fees are set by the federal government and apply to all airlines.
The commission said Wolf had three options: resign from the Senate and suspend his gubernatorial campaign, halt all Logan Airport operations, or divest himself of all interest in Cape Air. Wolf has said that divestment would seriously damage the company.
The Ethics Commission, which has been subjected to a lot of criticism for its high-handed ruling, agreed to hear an appeal from Wolf after a vacationing Gov. Deval Patrick returned to Beacon Hill last Wednesday and expressed sympathy for Wolf. Patrick, who appointed three of the five members of the commission, including the chairman, said the decision "may be technically right, but it is practically odd."
Another unexpected ally coming to Wolf 's defense was Common Cause - unexpected because Common Cause was the driving force for the adoption of the Ethics Commission in the first place.
That was when it bludgeoned the Legislature into creating the commission following the conviction of two state senators on bribery charges in the late 1970s related to the construction of UMass Boston. Many legislators have privately regretted its creation ever since.
But this is what the Legislature does: It overreacts and caves in to public pressure whenever it is faced with a problem of political corruption, even though very few members are ever involved in dishonest behavior. The result is a regrettable rush to create a new agency, like the Ethics Commission, or the Office of Political and Campaign Finance, or the Office of the Inspector General. These agencies oversee functions that belong in the office of the attorney general, or the secretary of state, or before the various district attorneys.
Instead you get new state agencies that become established with growing staffs, growing budgets and growing arrogance. You reach a point, like the State Ethics Commission, that ends up thinking it is the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.
Regarding Common Cause and the Wolf situation, Pam Wilmot, Common Cause executive director, said the organization would like to see the commission reassess its position since "there really appears to be very little opportunity for an actual conflict of interest for the senator, or even the appearance of conflict, given the highly regulated nature of the business."
Hang around long enough and you see things come full circle.
Peter Lucas' political column appears Tuesday and Friday. Email him at luke1825@comcast.net.

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